It took a long time for me to realize that Gary, Indiana didn't have the best of reputations.

The first time I heard of Gary was from the mouth of a young Ron Howard in The Music Man.

It really wasn't until I was in my 20s did I start hearing people talk about Gary, Indiana in disparaging tones.

Now I have never been to Gary, Indiana and that's probably there isn't anything to do there. I mean, if you google "what to do in Gary, Indiana" this is what shows up.

Joe Dredge
Joe Dredge
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You should notice that there are only 4 things on the list of 5 things to do in Gary, and the second one is a church. Nothing against churches, but unless you're talking about the Vatican, a church shouldn't be on the top of the list of things to do in town.

The first video I posted above does a great job of explaining why Gary is what it is today. Gary was a town literally created by a business that opened up steel mills on Lake Michigan but was too far away from Chicago for the workers to commute. One of the main problems was that most of the workers didn't make enough money to buy housing in town. This led to tent cities and people living in cramped quarters on the outskirts of town.

It gets a lot more complicated after that, but the city is still suffering because of how it was founded.

Quick side story. I was telling Double T down at 96.7 The Eagle about this video and he told me about the time he took a bus to Gary for a CBA All-Star game when the Lightning were in town. It sounded amazing. They basically played it in a big high school gym with a bar basically at one end of the building selling dollar beers. You didn't even need to buy a ticket to the game to drink at the bar. It literally sounds like paradise. Maybe I have been missing something in Gary. Time for a road trip?

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